Deep-water NPS biotope - pico style!

[biophilia]

Quick update:
I have a 20 head Tubastraea coccinea colony on the way as well as a ~6” Diodogorgia nodulifera. Going to be adding a coral banded shrimp and a few other cleanup crew members soon as well. Hoping to keep to deep-water Caribbean species.

Also have a Sharper Image wine bottle chiller on the way. After playing around with my existing rotifer and copepod cultures, I’ve decided that I want to keep this NPS tank as simple and low-maintenance as possible and will therefore dose prepared/dead food sources. The chiller will keep a small bottle of saltwater at 37F so I’ll be preparing a mix of Reef Nutrition phytofeast, R.O.E, Rotifer Feast, Oyster Eggs, Reef Roids, and probably Coral Sprint. I’ll have an airline running into it that bubbles for a minute or so before each dose to keep food in suspension. The food will be dosed with the Jebao dosing pump which will also pull an identical quantity of water from the tank and into a waste jug to keep salinity constant.

 

[biophilia]

@Jomama if you happen to come across any sources for black coral/wire coral/Cirrhipathes leutkeni in your travels let me know!

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

@Jomama if you happen to come across any sources for black coral/wire coral/Cirrhipathes leutkeni in your travels let me know!

I'm waiting for two. New vendor, hopefully they deliver

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Quick update:
I have a 20 head Tubastraea coccinea colony on the way as well as a ~6” Diodogorgia nodulifera. Going to be adding a coral banded shrimp and a few other cleanup crew members soon as well. Hoping to keep to deep-water Caribbean species.

Also have a Sharper Image wine bottle chiller on the way. After playing around with my existing rotifer and copepod cultures, I’ve decided that I want to keep this NPS tank as simple and low-maintenance as possible and will therefore dose prepared/dead food sources. The chiller will keep a small bottle of saltwater at 35C so I’ll be preparing a mix of Reef Nutrition phytofeast, R.O.E, Rotifer Feast, Oyster Eggs, Reef Roids, and probably Coral Sprint. I’ll have an airline running into it that bubbles for a minute or so before each dose to keep food in suspension. The food will be dosed with the Jebao dosing pump which will also pull an identical quantity of water from the tank and into a waste jug to keep salinity constant.

I reduce to 20mL every 40min I'm starting slow, and ramp up. Hopefully Wednesday 20 dendronephthya. Hopefully

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Just ordered this NPS , not a gorgonian

 

[biophilia]

Just ordered this NPS , not a gorgonian

That's funny, I was thinking of ordering the same one. It looks awesome. I saw that telesto being sold by the same supplier I bought my sun polyps from. My sun polyps are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow and the gorgonian Thursday. I have the refridgerated feed/doser all set up so I'll be posting an update with some pics in the next couple days.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Just ordered this NPS , not a gorgonian

I've had this before, LFS didn't know what it was

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Very pleased to find another NPS tank on here! I am going a less high tech method...target feeding the large polyped NPS corals frozen and flakes twice a day, target feeding the smaller ones reef roids twice a day, and broadcast feeding live phytoplankton to the tank every night. I may eventually use a thermos to hold refridgerated food over the tank and use an airline to drip the food into the tank for a few hours. Nutrient export will be accomplished with 40% water changes twice a week and LOTS of macroalgae. I hope both of our tanks do well

I bought my sun coral from that same ebay supplier. It's doing fantastic. He says the snowflake/white telesto coral is also a piece of cake.

 

[biophilia]

Quick update -- I'll do a proper one this weekend once everything is better assembled

Got a 70+ head Tubastraea colony that I'll be fragging into four or five pieces and mounting to the rockscape.

A small Diodogorgia frag also arrived which is barely visible in the photo below. It hasn't extended polyps yet so I'm crossing my fingers and regularly enticing it with cyclops, Reef Roids, and phytoplankton.

Here's the wine bottle chiller feeder setup which will be connected to the dosing pump. The air pump is connected to a digital timer which has a seconds-interval setting so that I can have it come on for a few seconds before the dosing pump to mix the food.

The fan connected to the corrugated plastic sheet below the chiller in the pic above is the back side of the cover for the shelf that will hold the doser, chiller, ATO containers, etc. The chiller and Jebao are pretty loud and this tank is right next to our bed so I made a little vented/insulated cover with two layers of choroplast and one layer of dense foamcore to help insulate the noise and then painted it to match the color of the bookshelf that the tank is on. The vent fan is a little AV cabinet fan I found online.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Quick update -- I'll do a proper one this weekend once everything is better assembled

Got a 70+ head Tubastraea colony that I'll be fragging into four or five pieces and mounting to the rockscape.

A small Diodogorgia frag also arrived which is barely visible in the photo below. It hasn't extended polyps yet so I'm crossing my fingers and regularly enticing it with cyclops, Reef Roids, and phytoplankton (the random Siporax pieces will be removed when I properly mount the frags this weekend).

Here's the wine bottle chiller feeder setup which will be connected to the dosing pump. The air pump is connected to a digital timer which has a seconds-interval setting so that I can have it come on for a few seconds before the dosing pump to mix the food.

The fan connected to the corrugated plastic sheet below the chiller in the pic above is the back side of the cover for the shelf that will hold the doser, chiller, ATO containers, etc. The chiller and Jebao are pretty loud and this tank is right next to our bed so I made a little vented/insulated cover with two layers of choroplast and one layer of dense foamcore to help insulate the noise and then painted it to match the color of the bookshelf that the tank is on. The vent fan is a little AV cabinet fan I found online.

Coming together. Love the chiller idea.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

This weekend I started a build I've been wanting to do for quite a while. The game-plan is to create a tiny, deep-water biotope featuring non-photosynthetic corals primarily from lower mesophotic zones in the Caribbean with a few exceptions.

My hope is that the tank will be somewhat unique, challenging, and an experiment in pushing the limits of what can be done with a small volume of water.

Equipment:
3.7 gallon "Imagitarium" Petco tank
Heater: Marina 25w (set to 74F) (Inkbird temp controller and cooling fan down the line)
Actinic-heavy lighting for about 5 hours per day (21ledusa.com)

Hydor Pico Evolution Mini 300gph
Jebao Dp-4 for dosing phyto, rotifers, various NPS foods every few hours -- as well as topping off freshwater and carbon dosing
Sharper Image wine bottle chiller to keep food reservoir refridgerated

Biological Media:
3/4 liter Siporax in back chamber for rapid ammonia processing (my understanding is this is equal to roughly 7 lbs of live rock)
1/2" inch CaribSea Fiji Pink sand (aggressively stirred up w/ each water change)
2.5 lbs dry Real Reef rock w/ a bit of live rock seeded from my established nano reef

Water Quality Management:
Weekly 2 gallon water changes using W/C water removed from my 10 gallon reef tank (typically ~5ppmm NO3, 0.03ppm PO4)
lanthanum chloride drip for PO4 control (has been working great on my very high-bioload 10 gallon mixed zoa/LPS/SPS/NPS nano)
carbon filter floss changed every few days
carbon dosing (vinegar) combined with silica dosing as needed for sponge growth.

Livestock:
Undecided. Tubastrea and Dendrophyllia for sure, probably a gorgonian or two (Diodogorgia?), Nephthyigorgia possibly, maybe some ornamental Porifera, maybe feather dusters
Lots of polychaete worms, brittle stars, copepods, and other benthic scavengers and detrivores as well as some snails and hermits for cleanup
Possibly a shrimp or two
(no fish)

Feeding:
Artemia nauplii + adults (I culture these already for my mixed reef)
rotifers (I culture these as well)
copepods (ditto)
Oyterfeast
PhytoFeast
cyclops
Reef Roids
frozen Mysis
maybe more?

Got my telesto, looks nothing like picture, I guess you get what you paid for. Bummer

 

[NY_Caveman]

Got my telesto, looks nothing like picture, I guess you get what you paid for. Bummer

That is a real bummer. I hope it still has potential for you.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

That is a real bummer. I hope it still has potential for you.

We'll see.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

That is a real bummer. I hope it still has potential for you.

We'll see.

 

[biophilia]

We'll see.

Sorry to hear that. This is my first Ebay coral experience. On one hand, I'm pretty blown away that I was able to score a ~70 head sun coral for $15+shipping, but on the other, the gorgonian that was billed as "3-6 inch" arrived as a 2" frag packaged in a tiny mylar envelope half-exposed to the air with about 3 ounces of water in it. Hit or miss I suppose...

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Sorry to hear that. This is my first Ebay coral experience. On one hand, I'm pretty blown away that I was able to score a ~70 head sun coral for $15+shipping, but on the other, the gorgonian that was billed as "3-6 inch" arrived as a 2" frag packaged in a tiny mylar envelope half-exposed to the air with about 3 ounces of water in it. Hit or miss I suppose...

70 alot of sun polys. WOW

 

[biophilia]

70 alot of sun polys. WOW

About 40 of those are little babies (1/8" each), but still...

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

About 40 of those are little babies (1/8" each), but still...

Nice, feed em well

 

[biophilia]

Small update...

Managed to get things a little more organized. The tank and all of the associated equipment is crammed into a little bookshelf in the corner of our bedroom so I've been working hard to not let it take over too much real-estate. The topoff and refridgerated feeder is all in the lowest compartment. The wastewater container is hidden behind the books on the shelf above the tank so that it doesn't siphon the tank if something funky happens to the cheap Jebao doser. The cardboard in front of the tank light is just a test. I'll be making something more permanent soon.

The wine bottle chiller generates a lot of heat so I had to clear room around it and make a little aluminum foil/insulated divider to keep it from heating the topoff container up to 100+ degrees.

... and on a positive note, the Diodogorgia may come around yet. It's beginning to extend a few polyps after almost a week! I currently have flow cranked up to what I'm guestimating is 10cm/s which is in the range of feeding requirements for these guys.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Small update...

Managed to get things a little more organized. The tank and all of the associated equipment is crammed into a little bookshelf in the corner of our bedroom so I've been working hard to not let it take over too much real-estate. The topoff and refridgerated feeder is all in the lowest compartment. The wastewater container is hidden behind the books on the shelf above the tank so that it doesn't siphon the tank if something funky happens to the cheap Jebao doser. The cardboard in front of the tank light is just a test. I'll be making something more formal soon.

The wine bottle chiller generates a lot of heat so I had to clear room around it and make a little aluminum foil/insulated divider to keep it from heating the topoff container up to 100+ degrees.

... and on a positive note, the Diodogorgia may come around yet. It's beginning to extend a few polyps after almost a week! I currently have flow cranked up to what I'm guestimating is 10cm/s which is in the range of feeding requirements for these guys.

WOW, keep it coming